About Us

About North Qld

It's hard to describe the North Queensland region without sounding like a travel brochure - a fantastic climate, strong economy, productive pastoral and agricultural lands in the west and the Great Barrier Reef just off the coast.

North Queensland has two distinct weather seasons. The wet season is over Summer with most of the area's annual rainfall between December and March. Summer temperatures range between 24 and 32 degrees celcius. Winter is much drier and the temperature ranges between 15 and 26 degrees.

North Queensland's economy is one of the fastest growing in the state. Mining and manufacturing contribute significantly to the economy. Agricultural production in the region includes sugarcane, beef and fruit and vegetables. The major centre of Townsville has army and air-force bases which contribute about 8 percent of the region's income. The city also has a busy port as well as a ferry terminal which links the mainland to Magnetic Island and the Great Barrier Reef.

The North Queensland region boasts some of the most beautiful sections of the Great Barrier Reef. It also includes picturesque Magnetic and Hinchinbrook Islands, as well as rainforests and wetlands, including the RAMSAR wetland at Bowling Green Bay.

A Caribou soars over Townsville (Winsome Denyer)

About ABC North Queensland

Early Days 1930s - 1950sThe beginnings of the ABC in Townsville are hazy, but by most recounts it opened around 1935/36 as 4QN. In those very early days there wasn't much locally produced content; the transmitter mostly relayed national programs from the southern capitals. The studio was situated in town on the second or third floor of the AMP Insurance building, with a side door off Stanley St. There were two local news bulletins a day, one at 7:45am and 6:53pm (more commonly referred to as seven minutes to seven). The seven minutes to seven bulletin stayed on the air until the 80s. At the time the part-time announcer would take his copy of the Townsville Daily Bulletin and simply read off the page, with attribution. Keith Kennedy read the news during the Second World War, and another was a Mr Millican, who lived in Bundock St, Belgian Gardens. Later there was another man, Rapier, who was a journalist for the Bulletin. He did a magazine-style program on 4QN.

In 1939 there was the School Broadcast at about 11am, when all the school kids would gather around the radio. The show would include worldwide current affairs, particularly at that stage when things were stirring in Europe, which then culminated in the Second World War. During the War all radio stations had to close down at 6pm with the announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen as a national security measure this station will close and will resume at 6 o'clock in the morning". God Save the King would be played and suddenly the transmitter went off the air. The reason - a radio station whose location is exactly known to the enemy could become a wonderful navigation device. Broadcasts also included long lists of vegetables, which had been received on the Brisbane markets and the prices, and even recordings of the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

The 1960s-1970sThe studios have been in their current location since about 1963, at 8-10 Wickham St, Townsville. The former building on Wickham St (pictured) was built by the Defence Department to house the Royal Australian Air Force Marine Section. It was built when Townsville was a garrison city in the Second World War, around about the time of the Battle of the Coral Sea (1941/42). It was planned as a temporary structure, but remained until 1988. When the ABC arrived in the 60s, that building served as the office where the journalists worked. Behind that there was a newer building which still exists today, built in 1964 to house the television studios (pictured), and later the radio studios too. In the early 70s radio produced a local morning program but the rest was networked out of Brisbane.

Television was a major part of the ABC Townsville studios in the 60s and 70s. In the mid 70s Townsville and Rockhampton together were the first TV stations in Australia to employ ENG (Electronic News Gathering): a portable camera and videotape recorder (pictured in the photo of Allan Ross at the Tobruk Pool). The portable videotape was housed in a purpose-built station wagon, a Ford Fairmont (pictured entering the RAAF Hercules on its first trip to Mt Isa). The camera had to be tied to the van by vision, sound, and talkback cabling. The producer and the videotape operator would sit in the van, and tell the camera operator what to do.

Townsville also produced and televised the first public access TV programs in Australia, under Regional Program Manager Guy Ballantyne (approx 1972-1979). There was a big controversy at the time of the Gough Whitlam election, because Guy was a staunch ALP member, and handed out How to Vote cards for the ALP on Election Day. Many said that as RPM he should have remained neutral, at least publicly. In the late 70s John Hewitt, a popular TV News Reader in Townsville, had a stroke on air while he was reading the news. Sadly, John never returned to news reading after his stroke. Other noted newsreaders were Helen Shoebridge (pictured) and Carol Carter (radio).

The 1980sBy the 80s TV was in full swing. There was nightly news, a current affairs program called Points North, two rural television shows: Country Man (later Farmline, see video) and To Market, To Market, looking at fruit & veg prices, a sporting television show with Peter Corke and weather at 7:24, originally done by the rural department and later by a dedicated weather presenter. Townsville also fed TV programs to Cairns and to Mt Isa, so the team often visited those centres for programs. TNQ 7 was the last ABC television station to broadcast in black and white and the last to go colour. But in 1984 TV virtually closed down (except for a reporter and cameraman) after the first AUSAT satellite was launched. There was a similar operation out of Rockhampton so the funding was cut and the TV studios closed down. About 15 staff members were lost.

At that time TV was much more powerful than radio in Townsville. But around the same time the ABC had a regional radio expansion all over Australia. By the 80s, local breakfast, morning, afternoon, drive and evening shows were broadcast from the Townsville studios. A separate breakfast show for regional Queensland even came out of Townsville in the late 80s/early 90s. The station used to broadcast into Cairns, Mackay and Mount Isa before they got their own respective stations. In the late 80s 4QN was also headquarters of the regional network, which is now based out of Longreach.

In the 80s the breakfast program went from 5am to 9am with AM and a rural report as they still are today. The morning show was similar to what's on today, with a little less talk because there was no technology to do phone interviews easily. The afternoon show was all music, the drive show had a few interviews and the evening show was like a magazine show with comedy and light entertainment. There was gardening talkback as well, which is still on the mornings show with Phil Murray today. There were also other short-lived political and religious shows run by journalists and presenters. However, there was no midnight to dawn show, and they used to warm the transmitters up with music in the early morning, and would play the national anthem at midnight.

Regional Program Manager Grahame Steele (from approx 1980-1983) applied for and won a grant to study the new public broadcasting system the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was setting up for their native Canadians, the Inuit Eskimos. Grahame then returned to Australia, and established the first Aboriginal and Islander broadcasting in Australia. ABC radio in Townsville also took on the first Aboriginal and Islander broadcaster trainees. The current Production Studio was built for their exclusive use, and they were given air time to broadcast a weekly program. Townsville technicians then went on to design, install, and maintain the first Aboriginal and Islander Media studios in Australia, for TAIMA in Townsville, followed by TSIMA on Thursday Island, Bummer Bippera in Cairns, and MIAMA in Mt Isa.

In 1982 the ABC celebrated its 50-year anniversary, so the Townsville team broadcast from the Townsville Show. It was the first time the ABC had been to the show. In 1988 a new building was constructed on the Defence building site and during that time a temporary office was set up across the road in Flinders St East (currently Santa Fe). Presenters and journalists had to walk up the hill with all their tapes to the back studios about a block away. But if anything was left behind in the office there was no time to go back and get it. During that time 4QN also received funding to build a brand new satellite dish in 1987, which still exists today.

The 1990sThere were several great moments on 4QN through the 90s. In sport, the Queensland Country Residents played Tonga in a match in 1993 at Hugh St. Peter Mitchell was feeding scores into the system through a mobile phone (a big brick in those days), which went out nationally. At 4QN Stuie McInnes and Peter Mitchell produced all the original notices that were played through all the radio stations seeking support to get the Cowboys off the ground. John Nutting launched the award-winning Saturday Night Country radio show in 1994, with a little help from Bonza, his dog (pictured). 4QN also broadcast through several cyclones and tropical storms, including the floods of 1998. Peter Mitchell broadcast to the local area while John Nutting did Saturday Night Country. They were stuck in the building all night. It was Paula Tapiolas's first night on the job as news director with 4QN and Peter Mitchell drove her home in the floods with water up to the car bonnet.

Transmitter630 ABC North Queensland broadcasts on the AM band through a transmitter based about a forty-minute drive south of Townsville at Brandon, near Ayr.The first 4QN transmitter mast was a 10-kilowatt, established at Cleveland (near AIMS today), with just a bush track leading to it. The transmitter generates the signal and mixes in the audio on a radio station. But, the transmitter at Cleveland burnt down in about the late 50s to early 60s. It was quickly replaced by a new 50-kilowatt transmitter, established at Brandon in the early 60s. The extra power didn't make much difference for Townsville but reception in outlying areas was greatly improved. The same transmitter is used today. The target audience is roughly from Airlie Beach up to Innisfail and West to Pentland. It was built not only broadcast to North Queensland but as a back up to the transmitters around Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea where it can be heard.

However in the early 1960s there was an embarrassing incident out at Brandon. Riggers were doing some maintenance on the mast and the story is they put up some temporary guy wires they were probably replacing the old guys - preventative maintenance - and in the middle of the night down she went. Fortunately it was in a big paddock, but it was a very expensive mistake.

Rebranding4QN became 630 4QN in the 1990s, and then 630 ABC North Queensland after 2000.

We are proud of our service in providing, news, entertainment, and information to our diverse community.

Photo: Old ABC studios in Wickham street Townsville 1987 / 1988

About abc.net.au/northqld/

This site is part of a broader network of sites - ABC Local - which provides local coverage of your region and a gateway to ABC Online. It includes more than 50 websites representing regions spanning the length and breadth of Australia.

North Qld's site - and indeed, all 54 Local sites - delivers local news, sport and weather as well as special feature stories that explore the events, places and people that make each region unique. Each website is also a place to share and a place to participate, creating a community space within the ABC online environment. You can comment on issues, upload your photos, list a community event and more.

The websites also support a range of features that creates a rich online experience. These include webcams, photo galleries, video stories, maps and a range of podcasts and on-demand audio items.

The ABC North Qld website is also the place to go for a comprehensive guide to what's happening on ABC North Queensland and for details of special events and competitions. It will keep you up-to-date on the latest special coverage events including sport, rural news and more, providing a window into everything that's available across ABC Online, Radio and TV.

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